Marine World

Rachel has her Twins Club Garage Sale this weekend, so I skipped work and got to spend the day with Parker, a rare treat. In order to make the most of it, we drove half an hour up the road to Marine World in Vallejo, which is now Six Flags Discovery Kingdom. I'd called it Marine World in the car, and I didn't see the point of trying to explain a new name to Parker. We had a great time.

There were two main kids zones, both branded to the hilt. The first is the Loony Tunes zone, and the second is the Thomas The Train zone. He doesn't know any of the Loony Tunes characters, and he was only mildly impressed with Thomas. The various park employees walking around in giant Bugs and Daffy outfits didn't even register.

We started with a balloon ride that was basically a teacups ride with vertical element. He was a little unsure at first, but was giggling uncontrollably in no time as we spun round and round.



Then we headed over to ride Thomas the Train. I tried to get Parker to notice the Big Thomas at the entrance to that zone, and it didn't register until we were basically right up next to it, and then he was sort of weirded out by it, and didn't want to get any closer.



He warmed up, though, and gave me what could have been a perfect picture, if not for his habit of putting his fingers in his mouth, any finger at all.



We of course had to go ride Thomas himself, which was a 5 minute trainride past various characters from the show. (Parker has never seen the show, but must have a dozen of the different train characters.)



Parker was hot to ride a roller coaster, and the Loony Tunes zone was happy to oblige. I tried to get some video but had some camera issues.



We had a lunch of PB&J & fries on the water.



We saw some sea lions, and fed them three fish. A big fat sea lion caught one of Parker's throws on the fly, which was pretty fun for him.



The big hit of the day was an enclosed room filled with thousands of foam balls, and endless machinery for playing with them, such as cannons that would shoot the balls across the room, tubes that would suck them up and spit them out, tubes that would emit air with just enough force to balance a ball three inches mid air, etc. All with a fish theme and a Wagner soundtrack, and about 20 kids under 54 inches tall going absolutely apeshit. We spend about an hour there, across two visits.




Late in the day we mellowed out in the Bugs Bunny playgound.



And finally we rode the elephant on the Merry Go Round before heading home.



He was a prince all day, and zonked out happy and exhausted at bedtime tonight. Dad, too.